Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital grows in east Fort Bend County

This a rendering of the 9,600-square-foot emergency care center that will open next summer in Missouri City.This a rendering of the 9,600-square-foot emergency care center that will open next summer in Missouri City.

A summer 2014 groundbreaking is planned for a six-story patient tower that Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital plans to open in 2016 in Sugar Land.A summer 2014 groundbreaking is planned for a six-story patient tower that Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital plans to open in 2016 in Sugar Land.

The work, including a six-story patient tower and an emergency care center in Missouri City, will comprise five projects totaling more than $131 million.

The expansion is a response to Fort Bend County's rapidly expanding population, said Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital CEO Chris Siebenaler, who lives in Sugar Land.

"The community has more need for medical care than is being provided," Siebenaler said. "Roughly 40 percent of the population here seeks medical care in Houston, largely because they can't get the care in Fort Bend County. We're just trying to keep up with the growth."

Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital has expanded several times since it opened at 16655 Southwest Freeway in 1998 with 22 beds. The most recent expansion, in 2008, brought the hospital from 54 beds to its current total of 243 beds.

When the latest expansion is completed in 2016, it will result in a total of 339 beds.

"This reflects the significant growth that Fort Bend County has been experiencing and the recognition that it is only going to continue," she said. "This expansion allows residents of Fort Bend County to conveniently remain within their community and receive first-rate care."

The work began this month when the hospital broke ground on a 9,600-square-foot emergency care center on Texas 6 in Missouri City. The facility, which will have 10 treatment rooms, is scheduled to open in summer 2014.

"Missouri City has two of the fastest-growing communities in the nation: Riverstone and Sienna Plantation," Siebenaler said. "We felt they need quicker access to emergency care."

The Missouri City facility will have the same capabilities as the emergency room at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital's main campus, Siebenaler said, and will have board-certified emergency room physicians.

"They'll have the same ability to treat and diagnose. If patients need to be admitted, we'll transport them to the main campus in Sugar Land."

Plans for the hospital's new patient tower call for a groundbreaking in summer 2014. The tower, to be located between the hospital's Sweetwater Pavilion and Main Pavilion, will bring the hospital's intensive care bed total from 20 to 40.

It also will add 56 medical/surgical beds when it opens in 2016, but there will be room for a total of 84 new medical/surgical beds.

"We'll leave a shell floor for future expansion," Siebenaler said. "It probably will be built out in 2018."

The new 60,000-square-foot building on the corner of U.S. 59 and Sweetwater Boulevard will have space for physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, aquatic therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.

Also planned is an outdoor facility for athletes working to return to play after injuries or surgery.

Groundbreaking for the orthopedics and sports medicine facility will take place in the second quarter of 2014, and the work is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2015.

Construction also will be taking place around that time on the expansion and relocation of the Heart Center and Cath Labs, now located on the hospital's second floor.

"Our goal is to build out the Heart Center next to the Emergency Center in the main building," Siebenaler said. "It should help shave off a few minutes from patients' door-to-balloon time."

Door-to-balloon time refers to the time from when a patient having a heart attack arrives at the emergency room to the performance of balloon angioplasty. During this procedure, a balloon-tipped catheter is threaded into a patient's blocked artery and then inflated to restore blood flow to the heart.

National guidelines call for a 90-minute or less door-to-balloon time. Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital's time has been 60 minutes, Siebenaler said.

"It's our goal to continue improving on that."

In addition to moving, the center will add a fourth cath lab, and it will gain its own exterior entrance for diagnostic and intervention services.

After the Heart Center and Cath Labs move, the birthing center will expand into the freed space. The birthing center also will be renovated and updated.